I bought a 500, a March pump, and a plate chiller. My idea is to put the HLT on the bottom tier, mash tun in the middle, and the kettle on the top and use my pump to move the liquid around. When time comes to chill the wort, I want to gravity feed it through my plate chiller directly into my carboy. The pump will be used to recirculate cooling water through the chiller.

Anyone done anything like this? Does it work well? Am I totally barking up the wrong tree?

BEER, a mixture of malted grains, water, hops and yeast, that is transformed through the course of fermentation that transcends the simplicity of those basic ingredients, fundamentally into the drink of life. turbo_ale

rudraigh wrote:Anyone done anything like this? Does it work well? Am I totally barking up the wrong tree?

In the normal configuration, how high is the valve on the boil kettle? For years I gravity-fed my Therminator into a carboy from a converted keg sitting on a Camp Chef cooker with leg exetensions with great success.

turbo_ale wrote:I for one would not want the boil kettle on top, hard to add items, check on, stir, cover, plus if you have a boil over, what a mess.I think by mounting the PC horizontal right off the ball valve you would have enough room to gravity feed to carboy ?

I've brewed four batches and have no issue with having the BK on top. I used to be a professional brewer and have no problem climbing a step ladder.

Anyway, I'm still trying to visualize how this is going to work in my little brew-shed.

rudraigh wrote:The pump will be used to recirculate cooling water through the chiller.

Most people just use water pressure from the tap (and would free up the pump to move wort).

Most people have a handy tap that they can do that with. I'm not most people. I'm brewing in a shed and don't, currently, have access to the tap. I will remedy that, eventually.

The idea is that I can use the pump to circulate water through the PC and through an old wort chiller in a bucket with ice water and gravity feed my wort through the PC into my fermenter. In theory, I should use considerably less water this way. Seems like a good way to go if I can just work out the logistics.

rudraigh wrote:Anyone done anything like this? Does it work well? Am I totally barking up the wrong tree?

In the normal configuration, how high is the valve on the boil kettle? For years I gravity-fed my Therminator into a carboy from a converted keg sitting on a Camp Chef cooker with leg exetensions with great success.

Well now! THAT's an interesting bit of kit! Does it flow well? I'm using the plate wort chiller currently available from MoreBeer and I was worried about flow rates if I didn't have enough drop. I haven't actually measured but I suspect the valve out of the BK is maybe a little over 5 feet high.